Abstract
Designing requires great social and moral responsibility as we are surrounded by products and services that shape -and simultaneously get shaped by- the way we live. This asks for active reflection on ethical issues. However, with the classical top-down approach, ethics may be perceived as restrictive, setting boundaries for what is allowed and what not. Within philosophy of technology, ethical reflection is moving towards a more constructive approach, accompanying technological development with careful considerations. This paper takes a step further and proposes something that could be called 'creative ethics', where a bottom-up approach in dealing with ethical issues fosters inspiration and imagination for desirable futures. This is illustrated with a case study on designing gender-neutral toilet facilities with students from the University of Antwerp and Saxion University of Applied Sciences. The resulting speculative designs open up the discussion about human values, personal identity and how we relate to each other.
Keywords
tool-based ethics; creativity; ethical reflection; gender diversity
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.368
Citation
Eggink, W. (2024) Speculative ethics, design, philosophy & education, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.368
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Speculative ethics, design, philosophy & education
Designing requires great social and moral responsibility as we are surrounded by products and services that shape -and simultaneously get shaped by- the way we live. This asks for active reflection on ethical issues. However, with the classical top-down approach, ethics may be perceived as restrictive, setting boundaries for what is allowed and what not. Within philosophy of technology, ethical reflection is moving towards a more constructive approach, accompanying technological development with careful considerations. This paper takes a step further and proposes something that could be called 'creative ethics', where a bottom-up approach in dealing with ethical issues fosters inspiration and imagination for desirable futures. This is illustrated with a case study on designing gender-neutral toilet facilities with students from the University of Antwerp and Saxion University of Applied Sciences. The resulting speculative designs open up the discussion about human values, personal identity and how we relate to each other.